Members of the Australian Refugee Association from Adelaide, Tasmania and Brisbane will travel to Magwi, South Sudan, next week.

The team of seven volunteers have raised closed to $40,000 over the past three years, just over half what they believe is required, to fund a community project to build a new school for the township.

"We are working with the local community so that we use very little money," ARA training officer and Magwi Development Agency Australia volunteer Celian Kidega said.

"Normally it would cost up to about $200,000, but because we are using the local community resources and manpower, we need about $75,000."

The group hopes to accomplish several tasks including helping develop an assets-based community development ideology within Magwi to move residents away from government funding dependencies and teach groups how to rebuild by taking advantage of local skills and talents.

"The land is free, the bricks are laid by the community, and all we are going to do is buy things like cement."

For Celian, he will be returning to a place where he was a teacher, almost 20 years ago.

He proudly showed a photograph of him standing with a group of teachers in front of a staff room.

A corrugated iron roofed building with an arrangement of sticks and poles for walls.

The next photo displayed a pile of rubble, which was the schools toilet block before it was bombed during the war.

Hoping to help girls

Celian said they hoped, as part of rebuilding the school, that they will be able to introduce a program to help young women who are normally lost to the schooling system through early marriage and pregnancy continue their education.

"Because of our culture and way of life girls were disadvantaged for over a long period of time.

"Our hope is to open the secondary school and an adult education program."

It will be the first of its kind in the South Sudan area.

"We hope that it will be accepted and I think that some people in the community and the policy makers will see it positively."

Celian also hopes that by constructing a secondary school in Magwi it will save the community a great by of money by families not having to send their children away to larger cities to further their education.

For ARA volunteer Kevin Ochilo, it has been 11 years since he lived in Africa.

Returning to South Sudan fills him with a range of emotions.

His last memories were of the the air being filled with the sounds of gun shots and explosions.

"Hopefully it will be all new memories for me."

Kevin is very proud to be a part of a project that will help rebuild his old country and give young women a greater chance to access or finish their senior schooling.

"I've always believed that if you look after people then they will be able to look after themselves, and then the world will be a better place."

You can find out more information about the Magwi Development Agency Australia from the group's website, with information on how to become financially involved at their donation page.